Thank You!

I want to send a BIG SHOUT OUT to Michelle at Everyday Celebrating for featuring Ozzie's Baptism on her blog. THANK YOU!

As a stay-at-home-Mom crafting & blogging provide me a much needed creative outlet. Honestly I can only play with the donut stacker and block sorter for so long before I start to lose it. So to be featured on another blog is pretty awesome in my book. Kinda feeling like a rock star today! Especially since I love her blog and have been following it since I started my blog wayyy back in January.

Thanks again it was fun fun fun to see your post! For those of you haven't checked out Everyday Celebrating, give it a looksie. It's filled with fun stuff to well.. celebrate everyday!

Pretty Pumpkins

I love decorating my house for Autumn. Probably because Autumn is my favorite season of the year with all of the leaves turning colors, crisp and warm days simultaneously and Thanksgiving, my favorite American holiday. To me there is nothing better than warm orange, red, amber, purple, green and {my personal favorite} brown colors in a fall house. So when I saw these adorable velvet pumpkins over at Housemartin I had to share.

The pumpkin decoration is almost overdone but these lovelies put a new twist on an old favorite. Now I just have to wait until Autumn to purchase them from Ink & Peat. Do you think they take pre-sales?

Photo courtesy of Housemartin. Thanks for the inspiration as always!

Ozzie's Baptism

Ozzie was baptized into the Catholic faith a few weeks ago. Oscar and I aren't what you call practicing Catholics {i.e. we sleep in more than we make it to church on Sunday morning} but it was important to us and REALLY important to my Mom that we baptized him Catholic. Oscar and I asked his brother, Hugo, and his wife, JoJo, to be Ozzie's Godparents. They introduced us so it seemed fitting and we know they will be good faith role models for Ozzie.

It was my first excuse to make party invitations, favors and decorate for a party in honor of Ozzie so I tried a few new things. I figure it was good practice for his 1st birthday party coming up at the end of this month.

Traditionally a candle is decorated with the child's name and baptism date for the mass and is relighted every year on the anniversary of his baptism. Below is the candle, the invitation and his party favors. I decided to make magnets with the faith theme for the favors so I used dove and cross stickers.

I really wanted to make Martha Stewart's tissue paper pom poms and a cross garland inspired by Hostess with the Mostess bunny garland. Honestly I could have spent more time fluffing my pom poms but I had a lot to get done and was running out of time. I think the cross garland is one of my favorites from the party.

For the cross cupcakes I bought ready to use fondant from Wilton. Oscar helped to roll it out, it was a huge chunk of fondant and I needed his muscle. We used a mini-cross cookie cutter and colored the frosting baby blue. They kind of looked like little gravestones but I still liked how they turned out.

My Mom just came back from a vacation in the Philippines and she brought Ozzie a traditional Filipino shirt called a Barong Tagalog. Ozzie looked too cute in his. Here he is with his cousin Kailani and smiling at his cousin Carissa {the official picture taker} over my shoulder.

St. Barbara's Church was really pretty and they offer private baptisms on Saturday morning. It was really quaint and special that it was just our family welcoming Ozzie into the Catholic faith. Everything went great. Ozzie didn't melt down when Father Chuck poured the Holy Water on his head. In fact, he seemed to be enjoying the whole thing. I did have to sneak him puffs during Father's Bible readings to keep him quiet.

Speaking of Father Chuck, we loved him! I wish that he wasn't retiring and that he could perform all of Ozzie's sacraments. He lead a great service and his humor was a pleasant change from the stern priests of my youth. Now I know why the receptionist at St. Barbara's said he was in high demand. Luckily he was able to perform Ozzie's baptism before he retired.

We only invited our family and the Godparent's family to keep it small. With Ozzie's 1st birthday at the end of this month, I don't think I could have pulled off two big parties in a row. Life and party planning is much harder with a little one!

Below are pictures of Ozzie getting baptized with the Holy Water and Blessed Oil as well as everyone who attended. If you want to see more pictures click here.

So Ozzie is officially baptized Catholic. God Bless him! Only 6 more sacraments to go...

Fourth of July Continued...

As I said before I am trying to embrace July since Ozzie was born in July. Prior to his birth I never cared for the month of July. I won't repeat my ramblings from before but to sum up it's not my favorite month. Or at least it used to not be my favorite month. Now that my little guy is a July baby I love it right?

In my domestic goddess quest and all around embracing of July, I wanted to make Ozzie a special red, white and blue treat for his first Fourth of July.

I originally wanted to make Martha's flag cake but decided to go with Ina's version after reading the reviews on the web. Plus I've never tried an Ina recipe that I didn't love.

I did modify it a bit by making it a layer cake instead of a sheet cake by cutting my sheet in half, which kind of made it a mini-cake. I also added strawberries as the filler and topper instead of raspberries. I had a huge box of strawberries on hand so they went in the cake. Last, I used whip cream as the icing because whip cream makes for a lighter frosting than a cream cheese frosting. Sometimes on a hot day a heavy cream cheese frosting is too much even for this dessert lover.

Our niece was celebrating her birthday a little late so I made an extra cake and brought it to her party/4th of July party. The party goers gave me a thumbs up and so Ina's flag cake will stay in my repertoire. I have to admit, it was fun to decorate.

Happy Fourth of July!

I hope you have a safe and happy Independence Day filled with family, friends, fireworks {if you must!} and good times!

Welcome July!

If I'm being honest, I never liked the month of July. I don't like odds {except in decorating}, I hate the astrological sign of cancer {just because of the word, I actually love crabs} and I've never really been a fan of the 4th of July {don't like the mixture of flammable materials and loud noises}. Besides like many American holidays the true meaning behind the celebration is now lost on something less important.These are the random thoughts that go through my head. Blogging allows me to share them. Hey I never said you had to read this but since you are I know I'm nuts!

Okay I don't love July, naturally my son was born in July. So this naysayer is now reformed. I'm learning to embrace the 4th of July and in my ever going quest to become a domestic goddess, I've decided to celebrate Ozzie's first 4th of July with a special red, white and blue treat!

Of course I'm partial to Martha plus her website is already loaded with 24 Red, White and Blue dessert recipes in true Martha fashion. This one is on the top of my list {except I'll use strawberries for the stripes} but don't these others also look tempting?

I wish I could find the recipe for these mini-sugary stars.

I guess I can learn to love any month that celebrates with fresh fruit and whip cream. Plus my little patriot will be 1 at the end of the month. I can hardly believe it and I am so excited it's here!

God Made Dirt...

...so dirt don't hurt. This is the mantra I repeated in my head about 100 times while scrapping the dirt out of Ozzie's mouth! He decided to help himself to the dirt in the veggie garden while I was snipping some parsley for dinner.

Some of these pictures are super fuzzy but I had to post all of them because as you can see he thought the whole thing was hilarious and got quite a kick out of himself. The more I told him to open his mouth to show Mommy the dirt, the more he laughed hysterically.

Here is where I remembered to turn off the flash on my camera.

This last one absolutely cracks me up. The shear joy on his face is too funny. It's so fuzzy because by now I was hysterically laughing right along with him. Thank Heaven for little boys!

Ozzie's 1st Haircut

Another milestone, Ozzie got his first haircut. You never really know what you are gonna get from an 11 month old so you can imagine our surprise when Ozzie enjoyed it! At first he was a little apprehensive but he got over that quick since Oscar and I were cheering him on. A little limelight goes a long way with babies. How can you be upset when Mommy, Daddy and the hairstylist are all clapping our hands and chanting, "Yay Ozzie!"?

We took wayyy too many pictures and I posted wayyy too many of them but do you really expect a new Mommy to pick one or two pictures from her son's first haircut. In fact, if this isn't enough for you click here for more photos AND a video!

He was pretty cautious at first, not to sure what was going on.

You can see he started to warm up to it.

Now he's having fun!

Full view of the plane.

Checking himself out in the mirror.

Eating the steering wheel. I love that she kept cutting.

Smiling at Mommy and Daddy when it's over.

Happy Father's Day!

This year marked Oscar's first Father's Day and I really wanted to make it special for him. I thought it would be fun to start off his first with the first of many cheesy homemade gifts from Ozzie. After all, nothing says Father's Day more than a cheesy homemade gift from the kiddo, right? So off to Michaels I went for card stock and inspiration.

First I spotted some royalty stickers and then found matching crown card stock. Which resulted in this card. After all, he is the king of this castle is he not?





Add a great picture of Ozzie and him boating on Memorial Day and viola phase one of cheesy homemade gift complete.




Next I wanted to make him something that he could hang on the wall at work so after finding more card stock and stickers, I decided to add a print of Ozzie's hand in red hand paint to match his red card.


Great idea except when it was done the red hand print resembled a bloody hand print a la horror film. Whoops! I decided to go with it since it was supposed to be a cheesy homemade gift after all. Don't most Father's Day gifts come with some kind of mistake anyway? I figured it would fall under the category of the ashtray that looks like a blob or coffee mug missing the handle. I'm sure he's got plenty of those gifts in his near future.


Here's his bloody wall art- hee hee...

Unfortunately Ozzie caught a horrible virus and he was out of commission for the next 7 days so that ended Oscar's Father's Day gift. Dad's always get the short end of the stick.

Luckily I had enough forethought to order him special rib eye steaks from Omaha Steaks . Nothing makes up for the lack of a gift better than a rib eye flown in from corn fed Nebraska cows. But since Ozzie was sick we did have to cancel our Father's Day bbq with my Dad which was a major bummer.

Ozzie made Pepa his own bloody card too. {I'm still cracking up inside}

But the show must go on so Oscar barbecued the steaks, I tried a new appetizer of prosciutto wrapped scallops since Oscar loves scallops and added one of his favorite sides of garlic mashed potatoes. Since it was Father's Day I skipped veggies all together in my husbands shear delight. After a morning of pancakes with strawberries and whip cream {pretty much a redo of our Mother's Day breakfast} we had a day of feasting. Oscar was slowly forgetting his lack of a gift as his tummy got more and more full with each meal.

If I'm being honest I've had a better steak. I'm not sure that I'm a fan of a boneless rib eye but I had to try the famous Omaha Steaks once so Oscar's first Father's Day was the perfect occasion.

Garlic mashed potatoes- we're fans of leaving the skin on and not mashing all of the lumps out of the potatoes. The perfectly smooth mashed potatoes don't have that same homemade texture that I love.

The prosciutto wrapped scallops were deeelicious! Just toss the scallops in olive oil, sea salt and pepper. Wrap with 1/2 piece prosciutto sliced vertically and bake for 10 to 12 minutes in a 425 degree oven. I used the chili pepper olive oil from Oil & Vinegar. It added a little bit of heat to each bite.

For dessert we had our favorite Oatmeal Raisin cookies from Smitten Kitchen, I've blogged about these before. So good! Except I didn't have any raisins but did have some chocolate chips so I just substituted the chips and the cookies were still great.

Overall I think Oscar had a good first Father's Day even with a sick child and cancelled party we made do with what we had. I know I appreciated spending the day with my two favorite boys. Hope your Father's Day was a good one!

My Favorite Etsy Shop

If you follow my blog, you know how much I love birds nest, bird cages, bird eggs, bird, bird, bird, bird is the word. Interestingly enough I don't love birds as family pets, I prefer my pets soft with fur and paws not claws. But pretty little bird and nature inspired decorations are my all time favorites.

But I digress, back to my gal Brooke and her cute cute cute Etsy shop, Little Retreats. So I've blogged about her fabulous paper bird cages before and when I saw these lovely bird nests I had to send her another shout out!

This comes at an especially great time because as I mentioned earlier my little Ozzie is on the mend from a horrible virus and scary high fever so these pretty treats made me smile.

Cradled in a handmade nest of aspen wood and adorned with vintage inspired tags, these delicate little eggs are so sweet.

Make sure to check out Brooke's shop filled with paper goodies and other fun chotchkies, you won't be disappointed!

*photos courtesy Little Retreats